President Trump said Wednesday he had instructed the Defense Department to 鈥渋mmediately鈥 start testing nuclear weapons "on an equal basis" with other nations. The last confirmed nuclear test by the United States was in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush announced a moratorium on underground nuclear testing.
, a Cornell University professor specializing in military history, defense policy, and battlefield analysis, says the question is where and how the tests will happen.
Silbey says: 鈥淚f they are underground tests in Nevada, where such tests were previously, then the dangers are relatively minimal. The Nevada test site is a well-known space, the ground absorbs the blast, and it won鈥檛 do much more damage than the thousands of tests that happened there during the Cold War. But if Trump decides he wants an above ground test for drama purposes, then we start getting into radioactive fallout spreading somewhat unpredictably.
鈥淎bove ground tests at Nevada spread fallout across parts of the western United States in the 1950s, leading to raised rates of cancer and other illnesses (and likely killing John Wayne, who filmed a movie in 1956 downwind of the nuclear test site and died of lung cancer). If they want to avoid doing an air burst in the United States, then where? Bikini Atoll is now uninhabitable because of American nuclear tests and I doubt very many countries would be excited to have US nuclear weapons going off on their territory.鈥
More News from A&S
鈥楲ittle reason to expect any meaningful check鈥 on president despite some vocal opposition to strikes on Iran
Government
